Air-Air Refueling

Thanks for correcting my incorrect phraseology, but as the point of my post was to try to help someone with their unexplained apparent yaw, maybe you could suggest an alternative explanation and provide some help for someone that was asking for it?

Thanks Guys very nice of you all to chip in

 

No crosswind and I tried the mission with both engines mapped to just one axis on the throttle, no difference

 

Axis controls show rudder centered and small stick movements.

 

Either something has changed for me or I've just lost the knack.

 

It seemed before that when refueling everything was a lot more stable, well as stable as it gets.

 

It appears like drift or misalignment and no matter what I try I just cannot hold the aircraft on a stable track as the basket approaches, which I was able to do before and fairly recently too.

 

Now I'm constantly having to correct left or right and that usually leads to PIO. I'm wondering if this might have something to do with lag in my system causing the problem as I need a new graphic card.

 

If I could never do it before it wouldn't bother me so much but although far from easy I was refueling reasonably consistently, if painfully slowly.

 

Now I cannot even get the probe into the basket.

 

When/If I find out what the hell is going on I'll post up, in the meantime later I'll do a short vid and post up to YouTube

 

Maybe somebody will have an idea where I'm now going so horribly wrong when I wasn't previously.

 

Don't rule out the idiocy factor, it could well be just me being a complete clown

 

Thanks again though for all the help it is very much appreciated

 

John

Edited September 19, 2018 by Weegie
Clarity

Since you are talking about lag, what's your fps?

edit: just tried my first A2A refueling in the Hornet and I didn't encounter any yaw/drift behind the S-3.

Have you tried making your own mission without any wind/turbulence just for testing?

Edited September 19, 2018 by bbrz

Maybe check that any dead zones/curves that you might have had on your control axes have not been somehow reverted to default.

S3 refeul mis

 

not unless you want to spend about 5 minutes editing the mission file, which is where the problem appears to be and not in the code.

 

It's a very simple change and appears to work perfectly thereafter

 

Edit: To save you doing the edit, i've attached a fixed version, where the S3 should stay at 15,000ft and i've also stuck an ICLS on the carrier, at channel 1, so that you can combine the refueling session with a bit of ICLS carrier landing practice. I'm sure that ED will fix it, but in the meantime, this should suffice.

 

Thx, much appreciated.

bbrz around 40fps, so not too bad although obviouslya bit low

 

 

I have my own mission and have been testing in SP, funnily enough although still a fail I was on the Aerobatics server yesterday and is anything it seemed more stable in there than on SP which is just weird

 

 

I'll recheck my axes but pretty sure they are good

So after going through everything I found a couple of things and they were all really mission related

 

First there was a slight mismatch in the Waypoint speeds for the tanker so I fixed that and it seems better, but I cannot get an exact match for the Racetrack on the advanced options, but it's only 1km/hr

 

I have attached the mission file it is stupidly simple, C-130 on a Racetrack at 13k, actual speed of the tanker is around 217-218 KIAS.

 

What I found was that to connect I had to drive in at 220 where it seems a lot more stable, if I go in at 219 I just seem to wander and no matter what I do I seem to wallow a lot.

 

Looking at Tacview the tanker is rock stable on course and height which doesn't feel that way when I run it. It seems I can never go in straight and am always approaching the tanker at an angle. I can also not get onto a stable heading always drifting one way or the other.

 

Would love some others to try it or somebody with more brains than me to tell me WTF is going on.

 

I can now connect but usually not for long and never long enough to do a full refuel.

 

Any comments gratefully appreciated

FA-18C Day Air2Air Refuel C-130 Air Start.miz

I would recommend to set the tanker ground speed in the ME (on all waypoints, including waypoint 0 and including the orbit speed) to the maximum possible for the KC-130. ~220 KIAS sounds a tad too low for me, it will make the jet much more draggy and therefore harder to finely control it.

 

In my self made missions I usually set up the KC-130 at 11k feet and 336 kts GS which is the maximum the ME allows me. This translates into an IAS in game of around 279 kts which I find is a good speed to easily refuel with the Hornet.

I've just given it a try and didn't appear to have any issues. If you want to do it "by the numbers", approaching with the left engine's RPM set to to 81 and the right to 82 and then adjusting the right engine down to 81 and back up again to maintain position, that should take the throttle variable out of the equation.

 

Have you checked that one of your controllers isn't generating some unwanted "noise"? Maybe just sit on the tarmac and watch the surfaces for any movement that you haven't asked for. If it looks like that might be the case, then a re-calibration or just setting a bigger deadzone might help.

 

by the way, with the default settings for the mission, the tanker appears to fly at around 13,300ft and not exactly 13,000

 

Edit: it looks like this is not the exact science that i had hoped, as just trying it again, on the same mission, needed the throttles set to slightly lower values to avoid flying "through" the tanker. I still find it useful to use those numbers, but it appears that they will need to be adjusted for the prevailing conditions.

Edited September 23, 2018 by Greyman

A bit of fun down under...

 

A bit of fun down under...

 

 

 

I could only dream of doing that sort of approach

 

 

I finally got back into the groove somewhat but still find it an exercise in frustration, just tweaks to controller inputs etc: I also cannot get the HOG throttles to cal better than 1% between them.

 

 

One other thing I am now doing and it seems to help, but could be imagination, is setting flaps to 1/2 as I noticed they modulate by around a degree and it seems to upset AOA. It is far from a cure all, but it seems to be a little more stable.

 

 

 

In the end it is a matter of practice and tweaks

 

 

Thank you all for the assistance, I doubt I'll ever get it every time but now at least I'm able to plug in occasionally

 

 

 

Nice job dude! :thumbup:

 

I wouldn't use flaps at all, instead I would ask the mission builder to speed the tanker up. The KC130 is a dream to pull up next too when its flat out, I believe its 336 Kts (GS).

 

It is the most fun thing I have done in the sim so far and if you can get really comfortable doing it the potential of the Hornet is then mostly limited to pilot fatigue.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Woody01

Can't believe that I've had to adjust the instant air-refueling missions for the F/A-18 for the third patch in a row !

I was having a hard time when I was using the stiff spring in the warthog. I don't have room in my setup for an extension.

 

I got the lighter green spring and it's much easier to refuel now.

I was having a hard time when I was using the stiff spring in the warthog. I don't have room in my setup for an extension.

 

I got the lighter green spring and it's much easier to refuel now.

 

Yeah, Kudos to those who manage to do AAR without an extension! I purchased myself one years ago when I began flying helicopters in DCS. But I immediately appreciated the much finer control through the increased stick travel for fixed-wing assets as well.

I remember I did refuel in the hornet a few times a while back. Not sure what changed now but it seems my warthog throttles have a bit less response pushing them past 50% on the rails.

 

It feels like I move the past military power and the response isn't linear. I need to move them up a bit more past that and then my speed just shoots up quickly. If I lower them to mill power or a bit less the speed takes a while to decrease.

 

What settings in the throttle axis do you guys use if any? I don't remember the power curve acting like this on the throttles. I remember having to move them a lot but the speed increase and decrease used to be better.

I haven't noticed any difference on my end. To me, there's always been a delay between throttle input and engine power response and that delay time doesn't seem difference to me.

I haven't noticed any difference on my end. To me, there's always been a delay between throttle input and engine power response and that delay time doesn't seem difference to me.

After some time I managed to connect. But not for long mainly because the guy starts turning as soon as I'm nice and stable about 2 meters from the basket haha.

 

The throttle does take a while to get used to once you come back to refueling. I'm using my virpil warbrd base with heavy springs but the MT 50 grip. Maybe I should swap out for the normal springs because I put the heavy ones on thinking that I'd use the warthog grip.

 

But I don't want to recalibrate right now and redo all my bindings.

Two things key...

1 setup your throttle curves....search around here there are a few put together which make them more linear and realistic according to the vets

2 pop a bit of speed brake out and leave it out, this will add some drag and allow for much finer speed control

 

 

 

above all relax and fly patiently

In reality, you find what procedure works for you, but honestly, you should not be using the speed brake when AA refueling. You shouldn't even use it when landing.

True, each person has a technique that works for them. For me I forgot what it was because I have not flown in a while. But at one point I did have some technique I used and connected each time as long as the tanker was straight and level.

 

I'll have to figure out the throttle curves to make them smoother.

 

I was doing the AAR mission from this campaign and the tanker ends up banking a lot. He's also at 228 knots which seems ok but also feel very slow.

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302808/

 

The biggest thing I notice is I need to relax myself and not get frustrated or nervous. That is when I end up screwing up.

I did my longest stay on the boom recently not without autopilot and trimming. I did close to 30 seconds and got a good amount of refuel.

Boy! what a tasked.

I want to believe it all depends on control settings and parameters needs to be relaxed from the Tanker end to make this relatively doable without intensive minor adjustments.

Aerial refueling is crucial in missions.

Edited January 6, 2019 by Eaglewings

As a starter, fly in formation with the tanker for about 30 seconds to see what speed it's flying. If it's 228 knots, once connected, work the throttles constantly to stay between 228-230 knots. I personally had to use curves on my Cougar to get those small stick movements in order to stay connected.

I find one of the most important things is finding the point on the throttle where your speed stays constant.

Match speeds with the tanker before connecting and find the throttle position where your speed varies only a minimal amount, then get comfortable with your hand in that position.

 

You will still have to constantly adjust up and down around this point, but it really helps knowing where the neutral point is to be able to do fine speed adjustments.

I use the two partitions at the top of the HUD glass to line up with the light on the back of the refueling pod and then keeping the light roughly in that area. Then also once connected use a point on the side of the tankers fuselage to know if I'm moving forward or back. So either the emblem, or the 3 windows or whatever else works for you and keep that point near the partition for your canopy.